North and South groceries

"Qiu Dalang! Qiu Dalang! Didn't you say you want to send a letter home, go to Datongfang to have a look!" A few days later, one afternoon, someone shouted in a certain alley in the workshop.

"What's wrong?" The young man he called Qiu Dalang came out of his courtyard.

"You people from Hedong got a courier over there. It is said that they can help people deliver letters and other things. I heard that they will also open a shop in your city of Xi. As long as your family has relatives in the city, they will help you." If you can send it, I'll help you find out, if it's just a letter, it only costs five cents." The neighbor said excitedly.

"Seriously!" Qiu Dalang was pleasantly surprised when he heard about it.

Recently his daughter-in-law became pregnant again, and he wanted to write a letter to his old parents at home to make them happy, but he couldn't find someone to help him take the letter back after the letter was written. After all, not everyone can pass through the post station. Delivering letters, those merchants who are not familiar with each other, even if they ask, the other party may not be willing to help. I have been worrying for the past two days, but I did not expect to hear such news today.

"Hurry up! They have received a lot of goods today, and I heard that a batch will be shipped out tomorrow morning." His neighbor urged.

"Hey, I'll go right away." Qiu Dalang put on his shoes and wiped his hair, with the letter in his arms, he hurried to the Datongfang.

At Datongfang, Wang Dang and others were very busy at this time. After listening to Luo Yong's proposal two days ago, they were all very itchy. Several brothers discussed and discussed, and finally decided to do it.

To be honest, they have been a little tired of the life of wandering around these years, but if they don't do this, what can they do.

If Luo Sanlang's method works, they can divide the team into several groups in the future, each find a place to open a shop, and if they earn money, they can buy a house and land in the local area, and take over their wives and children , live a stable life, although the household registration is also very troublesome, but it is better than it is now.

After making up their minds, they began to look for shops in Chang'an City to make a living in freight delivery. The shops had to be closer to the gate of the city, but the housing prices and land prices in the few squares next to the gate were relatively high. So he settled for the next best thing and chose Datongfang as the place.

Entering from the Anhua Gate in the south of Chang’an City, the second square on the left is Datongfang, and to the west of Datongfang is Guiyifang where Xing Er and the others live. Wang Dang and the others rented a compound here, which is specially used for receiving and releasing goods.

Qiu Dalang rushed to Datongfang, followed the guidance of passers-by to find Wang Dang's shop, and what he saw was a rather simple courtyard with a plaque of "Dingda Express" hanging on the courtyard door, and the courtyard was bustling with people.

When Qiu Dalang entered the courtyard, someone asked him, "Send a letter or something?"

"Send a letter." Qiu Dalang replied.

"Go over there." The other party pointed in the direction of the main room: "Post letters on the left, and post parcels on the right."

"Can the letters from Xicheng really be delivered?" Qiu Dalang saw that the other party had a reckless air, but spoke kindly, so he asked one more question.

"If it's in the city, you can deliver it. If it's not in the city, you can write the address of a relative or acquaintance in the city. The place outside the city is too big to deliver it." Fang Yan said.

This Qiu Dalang's family also has relatives in Xicheng. In the past, he asked someone to bring letters to that relative's house. Hearing what he said at this time, he was very happy with peace of mind, and hurried to line up. .

He came to Chang'an City with his uncle a few years ago. His uncle ran a shop in Chang'an City. Although it was a small shop, he could earn some money all year round. His uncle and aunt had no children, so they brought his nephew with him. In the future, it is natural for him to inherit this shop.

Life in Chang'an City is very good. Although doing business is hard and earning not much, but after seeing the prosperity of Chang'an City, Qiu Dalang and his wife don't want to go back to Xi City anymore, but they often miss their parents and brothers in their hearts. Correspondence is very inconvenient.

This time, Dinghu people like Wang Dang opened a shop like this here, and they are willing to deliver letters for people with only a few pennies. .

Five cents and ten cents, Qiu Dalang and the others have it, and they are willing to spend it. It is better to spend a few cents than to ask grandpa to tell grandma to ask someone to bring the letter back.

At this time, there were quite a few people who wanted to send letters, and there were more than ten people in front of them, forming a queue that was neither long nor short.

Next to them, there are people who have come to send goods, some of them are holding packages in their arms, and some of them have burdens at their feet.

"...Silver hairpins? Silver hairpins are not accepted, and gold and silver utensils, fragile porcelain, and perishable ones are not accepted."

"Hey, look, this little hairpin was given to my mother-in-law. I hope this gentleman will be accommodating."

"There is no room for accommodation. Gold, silver and porcelain are not accepted at all. We, Mr. Wang, ahem, the rules set by the Wang family."

"These clothes?"

"The clothes can be delivered. You first wrap a layer of oil paper inside, then put a layer of sack on the outside, and sew it on. There are oil paper in the sack, but you have to pay for it. You don't charge for needles and threads. You just borrow it and use it."

"..."

Qiu Dalang was queuing here, and after hearing the conversation between these two people, and knowing that they didn't accept gold and silver artifacts, he felt in his heart that these people should be reliable.

In the past, he asked those merchants to bring letters. Some people accepted his thank-you money but didn’t bring the letter. Those kind of people are purely cheating money. That is.

It's faster to send the letter here, as long as the address is clearly written, and five cents will be enough.

It's just that some people came here with a piece of letter paper without an envelope.

It's not their fault. Letter writing has only just emerged in the past two years. In the past, there was something that mostly asked someone to bring a message. They didn't have pen and paper and couldn't read, so naturally they didn't write. Believe it.

In the past few years, there has been more hemp paper on the market, and the price is also cheaper. Letters have gradually increased among the people. There are people who help people write letters. A letter costs one or two pennies. It is better to write a few letters. People who work hard all day earn more.

Qiu Dalang has an old neighbor, who is 50 or [-] years old, and he is still struggling to learn how to read, so he wants to eat the same bowl of rice that the previous generation wrote letters.

Qiu Dalang didn't think so, but when his eldest son was a little older, he would also send him to Kaimeng.In Qiu Dalang's view, when business is good and sometimes bad, running a shop may not last for a long time, but as long as you can read and write, you will not die of hunger no matter what in this life.

"You don't have envelopes. We sell envelopes here. Do you want to buy them? Or take them back today, and bring them back after they are sealed." At this moment, another voice came from the front.

"Hey, buy, buy, I'll buy an envelope." Another voice responded quickly.

"Our envelopes here are five for a penny."

"Then buy a penny."

"I need to write the address on the envelope, can you write?"

"will not."

"Okay, let me write it for you."

"Hey, thank you."

"Next time, remember to seal the envelope and bring the address after writing it down. Look at the many people waiting behind."

"Hey."

"...All right, five cents."

"Hey."

"next."

"Wait a minute, a neighbor of mine asked me to ask. He wants to send something to Jiangzhou. I don't know the price?"

"Jiangzhou's goods are not accepted for the time being. At present, we plan to only set up shops in Puzhou, Linfen, Xicheng, Dinghu, and Taiyuan. We can also bring goods and letters from Lishi, and we cannot deliver them to other places for the time being."

"It's my time, it's my time."

"To Puzhou, five cents."

"I heard that it's five cents to send to Dinghu in Taiyuan."

"It's all five cents, will you send it?"

"send."

"The letters to Hedong Road are all five cents. If you feel that you are at a disadvantage, send it further next time."

"Haha! I have a relative in Yunzhou. When will you be able to receive letters from Yunzhou?"

"Yunzhou, that's far enough away. According to our old, ahem, headed Wang's plan, it will be within about a year."

"Jiangzhou should be faster?"

"That's natural."

On the other side of the delivery, a customer packed his package, and the recipient took it over and checked it, weighed it, and quoted a price: "Seventeen cents."

"Ouch." The other party felt a pain in the flesh, but he was somewhat psychologically prepared. Before coming here, he had inquired about the price.

After paying the money, I saw that the other party used a thick needle to draw a hemp thread through the corner of the package, and then put a small wooden sign on it, and tied two dead knots.

This wooden sign has the words "Chang'an-Linfen" and a string of numbers on it. The person responsible for the delivery copied the words on the wooden sign on a piece of paper, and wrote down the specific shipping address on the note. In triplicate, one is handed over to the consignor, the other is kept as a deposit, and the other is placed in a wooden box. When the time comes, it will go with the goods. When it arrives at Linfen, it will be shipped according to the specific address on these notes. .

"That's all right."

"All right."

"How many days will it take?"

"As long as it doesn't catch up with the heavy rain, we are guaranteed to arrive within ten days."

"What about Taiyuan? How many days does it take to arrive in Taiyuan?"

"It normally arrives within [-] days."

"Why did it take so long?"

"On the way to deliver the goods, sometimes it's faster and sometimes it's slower. It's always there. If it's raining heavily, it will inevitably delay some more time."

The people on this side of the hall are responsible for receiving the goods and collecting money. In the yard, several of Wang Dang's men are loading the goods.

We will leave early tomorrow morning. When we arrive in Puzhou, some people will leave the team and stay in Puzhou to deliver goods, and then they will find a shop to settle down. Puzhou is still quite a strange place for them, so everyone’s I feel a little uneasy, but as long as this thing can be done, the benefits in the future will be inexhaustible.

In the future, they only need to guard their respective shops, receive and deliver goods, get a commission for receiving an item, get a commission for delivering an item, and also get a commission for helping transshipment.

The road from Chang'an City to Dinghu County was divided into several sections by them, and each section took about two or three days' journey, and it took five or six days to make a round trip. Said, five or six days is not a problem at all.

In the early morning of the second day, Wang Dang and others delivered the first batch of goods out of the city. At this time, they did not have a courier point anywhere except the shop in Chang'an City.

Luo Yong drove the donkey cart out of the city to see them off. Wang Dang talked to Luo Yong several times in the past few days. In addition to asking Luo Yong for advice, he also told Luo Yong what he was most worried about.

For Wang Dang, what he was most worried about was not that their business would not be able to take root in the designated cities. After so many years of travel, he had seen some big storms, and he was more capable of solving problems than before.

What Wang Dang was most worried about was the management of the team. After breaking up his brothers and assigning them to various places in Hedong Road, after a long time and the current interests, some people would inevitably have differences.

For this matter, Luo Yong can't give any good advice. After all, even in later generations, the management of the company team is still a headache for every business operator.

Worried and worried, Wang Dang didn't flinch. There were only two things that his boss Wang wanted to do in the past. One was to provide his wife and children with snacks and clothes, and the other was to lead his brothers to find a good job.

In the past, he thought that as long as he could travel far away, sell goods outside, and come and go freely, then he would have completed his merits and virtues.

Now that he has done both of these things, the higher he stands and the farther he travels, the desire and longing in his heart are no longer what they used to be.

A few days ago, after hearing Luo Yong's idea about freight logistics, the more Wang Dang thought about it, the more he felt that this was what he should really do in his life. determination to do it.

At the end of July, I heard that Dingda Express has already opened a shop in Puzhou.

Afterwards, another batch of letters was sent to Chang'an City by the people in the shop over there, and then sent to various households by the people in Chang'an City on Yanerfei.

"Chang'an City and Puzhou can communicate!"

"Dingda Express has a shop in Puzhou!"

“Letters and parcels come and go with ease!”

"It only costs five cents to send a letter!"

"Quite fast!"

"It only takes three to five days to come from Puzhou!"

"Do you have any letters to send?"

"Have you heard of Dingda Express?"

Chang'an City is in commotion!

Because this is the first express delivery in history, and also because of the impact and changes this express has brought to their concepts and lifestyles.